Content by Keyword: Information Technology

With almost no exceptions, health centers we spoke with were working with usable hardware and adequate access to basic software and connectivity. However, reflecting the diversity of health centers’ size, access to funding, and investment priorities, we found that the overall computing environment varied considerably from center to center.

We queried health center leadership on how their center made decisions regarding IT and the level of priority afforded to IT in the organization overall. We also asked specifically about trends in IT spending and recent changes in their staffing and organizational approach to IT. Overall, we found that health centers’ approach to IT is evolving

As mentioned above, in conducting case studies, we visited or spoke with a total of 38 centers in seven different locations across the United States. Health centers visited differed substantially in scope of practice (number of patients and sites), management structure, and culture. While some centers we visited were large operations that trea

All thought leaders and stakeholders consulted in producing this report agreed on the importance of focusing on health center networks as the locus of advanced health center adoption of IT. While the reviews from health centers regarding their network participation were not uniformly positive, most reported important benefits that networks have ov

Although all networks investigated shared similar goals and basic governance models, we observed important variations in the path chosen to achieve network goals. In particular, networks differed widely in terms of their financial and operational model (level of integration, level of financial contribution from health centers) as well as their app

We observed a clear link between network characteristics, described above, and their functionality, with less centralized networks performing fewer services and exhibiting less likelihood of adopting shared systems. For example, less integrated models observed in HFP and SKYCAP faced both financial barriers and lack of buy-in for integration fro

Networks studied exhibited a variety of business and operational models. In the paragraphs below we describe key aspects of network governance and partnership models as well as the major functions health center networks undertook.

The efforts studied here are part of an ongoing trend toward health center network activity beginning in the mid-1990s. Although health center networks have existed in various forms for decades, several motivating factors have encouraged network formation and activity over the past 10 years.

As mentioned above, case studies focused largely on the activities of leading edge health center networks that had demonstrated some progress in implementing IT across health centers in a community or region. In this section we describe case study findings on the network level.

Importantly, the environmental scan pointed to the rising trend of health center participation in community-wide information systems collaborations, which generally took the form of regional health center networks. Funding for health center network activities came from dedicated outside grants, usually from the BPHC. Networks are typically funded

At the time of the environmental scan, we found that health centers had focused significant investment in practice management systems with some mixed, but overall positive results. Our thought leaders noted that the vast majority of medium-to-large health centers had some form of practice management software and that these applications generally i

As noted in the introduction, health centers have a special set of data and administrative requirements, and these requirements have direct implications for health centers’ needs for IT. Health centers are responsible for providing services to underserved and vulnerable populations, including Medicare and Medicaid recipients, the underinsured, a

Since the 1996 passage of the Health Care Consolidation Act, the Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) program has grown steadily both in the provision of services to target populations and in funding. Federal appropriations for health centers have risen steadily over the past two decades, an increase that has accelerated over the past severa

Federally sponsored health centers, authorized under Section 330 of the Health Centers Consolidation Act of 1996 and reauthorized in 2001, are integral parts of the nation’s health care “safety net” (providers who service underserved and uninsured populations) in both rural and urban regions across the United States. Since their inception

In this section we provide an overview of the Federally sponsored health center landscape, including the health center program’s history, funding structure, special issues and challenges for health centers. We also provide some context on the role of IT and health IT in health centers based on findings from our environmental scan. Much of this s

After each case study was complete, findings from preliminary phone calls, site visit discussions and follow-up activities were analyzed and written into draft case reports submitted to ASPE and HRSA. Once comments were received, NORC revised each document and submitted it in final form. Each report drew richly detailed findings and lessons lear

Findings from the environmental scan informed the second major phase of the study involving in-depth case studies. Site visits supporting each case study were conducted at seven communities or states across the nation from October 2003 through September 2004.

Because the body of literature relevant to IT use and adoption among health centers is relatively limited, we conducted an environmental scan, completed between February and September 2003, which included review of both published and unpublished materials relevant to key study topics. Materials summarized in the environmental scan were gathered th

As described above, we applied a tiered-qualitative approach described in the original proposal. Overall, our approach hinges on seven detailed case studies conducted in targeted geographic regions where we spoke with health center stakeholders in person and over the telephone regarding their experiences with IT implementation and use. Prior to th

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